Main menu

Post navigation

Race to the top

Both are industry-based, rather than representing critical consensus. And that says a lot about the institutions’ often peculiar choices over the years.

And this awards season, both have been called into question by individuals who feel that they are not sufficiently enamored of or responsive to the accomplishments of African-Americans.

In the case of the Oscars, the proponents of best picture nominee “Selma” have argued that its cast and director, Ava DuVernay, should have been nominated in their fields.

Race aside, few women ever have been nominated for the best director award: to be exact, four. And yeah, only one, Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), won.

But fewer blacks have been nominated: three. And no black women.

In the acting categories, though, blacks are well-represented, according to my own decidedly unscientific research. And that most of those nominations have come in recent decades probably speaks less to some sort of intentional effort to arbitrarily nominate individuals of a certain ethnicity than to the quality of those performances.

Of course, these are all subjective judgments, as was the case last year when “12 Years a Slave” won Oscars for best picture, supporting actress and screenplay. The Oscar for best director went not to Steve McQueen for “12 Years … ,” but to Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity.” That selection fell in line with the Academy’s tendency in recent years to honor directors whose work is technically complex. But note that it also went to a member of an ethnic minority, a Latino.

The particular merits of “Selma” aside, there’s an unfortunate tendency at the Oscars to nominate and reward films that promote some idealized notion of America. Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” and Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep” were never going to be nominated, but “Driving Miss Daisy” or “The Help”? Sure.

For my money, the Academy would better serve the country by selecting movies that present a more complex vision of black life — as it has done by giving acting Oscars to the likes of Jamie Foxx for “Ray,” Denzel Washington for “Training Day” and Morgan Freeman for “Million Dollar Baby,” and nominating actors including Viola Davis (“Doubt”), Dorothy Dandridge (“Carmen Jones”), Dexter Gordon (“Round Midnight”), Jaye Davidson (“The Crying Game”), Samuel L. Jackson (“Pulp Fiction”), Djimon Hounsou (“In America,” “Blood Diamond”), Juanita Moore (“Imitation of Life”) and Queen Latifah (“Chicago”). In some of these films, racial identity is integral; in others, irrelevant. But looking over just these few nominations, and there are many more, what impresses is the diversity of the roles.

That’s what gives me hope that maybe someday, as black filmmakers are given — or seize — more opportunities, we will see more diversity also in the nominations behind the camera as well.

As for the Grammys, even though no music fan in his right mind would give them much credibility, I was pleasantly surprised to see Beck win for “Morning Phase.”

No single track overwhelmed me more last year than “Wave” from that album. Its depth of feeling and artistic maturity single-handedly disposes of the canard that he’s merely a clever-to-a-fault wordsmith.

So when Kanye West nearly bum-rushed the stage as Beck was handed his award, backed off, but then dissed Beck at a post-show news conference, Kanye, the personality, as distinguished from the artist, seemed to have lost whatever credibility he had left.

West, sore that his mentor’s wife, Beyonce, lost, opined that Beck should have presented Mrs. Jay-Z with the award, a sort of reversal of Ving Rhames giving Jack Lemmon his Golden Globe back in 1998.

Now, West didn’t raise the race issue specifically; I’ll note that Pharrell also was nominated for best album, although I’d be surprised if his mediocre “G.I.R.L.” got a single vote, but he got no love from the Beyonce-besotted Kanye.

The pity is that the specifics of Beck-vs.-Beyonce obscured a valid point: that the Grammys typically honor the safe, the staid, the popular, whether black or white, rather than risk-takers, artists who change the game completely and advance the art. Such artists sometimes have their Grammy moment years after their most venerated work has been done, but more commonly, not at all.

Pick your own overlooked favorite: the Beatles, Elvis, Thelonious Monk, the Ramones, the Velvet Underground, Miles Davis, the Stones, Dylan, Chuck Berry, Joni Mitchell, George Jones, James Brown, Tupac Shakur, Public Enemy. Prince. David Bowie. Marvin Gaye. Sam Cooke. Imagine life without their music. But only two of these acts ever wound up in the Grammy winner’s circle for best album, which is arguably the top award.

It’s in that context that West made sense: “When you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration.”

And a couple of days later he backtracked somewhat on his treatment of Beck in an interview with Ryan Seacrest, clarifying his point: “It was kind of a joke, like the Grammys themselves.”

“Beck is one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game, so it’s nothing that I would want to do as a fellow musician, to disrespect him in any way,” he said. “That was a miswording on my part.”

Then, proving that he knows what time it is, he added of the Grammys: “They’re like a broke clock. They’re right only, like, twice a day.”

Sometimes Kanye gets in his own way, and his disrespect to Beck won’t soon be forgotten, at least by me. At the same time, though, he spoke some truth, and it’s about time someone bothered to do so at one of these endless, glittering hype fests-slash-popularity contests. As such, his emperor-has-no-clothes news flash did rap’s tradition of speaking truth to power proud.

Just don’t expect him to win that album of the year Grammy anytime soon.